simplicity

Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace Robes loosely flowing, hair as free Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art: They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

No "revisionist" historian of recent decades has excoriated the Spanish Conquest more thoroughly than Bartolomé de Las Casas, a contemporary of Columbus and the first priest to be ordained in the Americas: "The reason the Christians have murdered on such a vast scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is purely and simply greed. . . . Their insatiable greed and overweening ambition know no bounds; the land is fertile and rich, the inhabitants simple, forbearing and submissive. The Spaniards have shown not the slightest consideration for these people, treating them (and I speak from first-hand experience, having been there from the outset) not as brute animals - indeed, I would to God they had done and had shown them the consideration they afford their animals - so much as piles of dung in the middle of the road. They have had as little concern for their souls as for their bodies, all the millions that perished having gone to their deaths with no knowledge of God and without the benefit of the Sacraments. One fact in all this is widely known and beyond dispute, for even the tyrannical murderers themselves acknowledge the truth of it: the indigenous peoples never did the Europeans any harm whatever; on the contrary, they believed them to have descended from the heavens, at least until they or their fellow citizens had tasted, at the hands of these oppressors, a diet of robbery, murder, violence, and all other manner of trials and tribulations."

Barbara Bush's Family Reading Tips 1. Establish a routine for reading aloud. 2. Make reading together a special time. 3. Try these simple ways to enrich reading aloud with your children: --Move your finger under the words as you read. --Let your child help turn the pages. --Take turns reading words, sentences or pages. --Pause and ask open-ended questions such as, "How would you feel if you were that person?" or "What do you think might happen next?" --Look at the illustrations and talk about them. --Change your voice as you read different characters' words. Let your child make up voices. --Keep stories alive by acting them out. 4. Ask others who take care of your children to read aloud. 5. Visit the library regularly. 6. Let your children see you reading. 7. Read all kinds of things together. 8. Fill your home with opportunities for reading. 9. Keep reading aloud even after your children learn to read.